Europe's quiet power blocs: The new relevance of Visegrád and the Baltic Triangle

Euractiv

15-07-2025

Angelo Valerio Toma is a geopolitical analyst focusing on digital sovereignty, infrastructure politics, and emerging technologies.
As war, migration, and geopolitical fragmentation test the European Union's unity, the centre of gravity is shifting eastward. The EU's next chapter might not be written in Brussels – but in Vilnius, Tallinn, or Warsaw.
Regional blocs like the Baltic Triangle and the Visegrád Group are already stress-testing the kinds of solutions the Union urgently needs – on energy security, digital infrastructure, and defence. What they lack in formal authority, they increasingly make up for in legitimacy, agility, and focus.
The Baltic states are no longer sidelined to Europe's periphery – they have become its geopolitical frontier. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have forged one of the EU's most integrated regional defence ecosystems – from coordinated air policing to joint procurement. Their frontline exposure to Russia has forced strategic innovation.
Lithuania's LNG terminal in Klaipėda ended the country's energy dependence on Moscow years before Brussels could act. Estonia, having suffered a landmark cyberattack in 2007, went on to become a cybersecurity pioneer – hosting the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence and influencing the Union's digital policy architecture.
In Central Europe, the Visegrád Group – Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary – remains a political anomaly: often internally divided, yet functionally coherent on key regional issues. While Hungary's alignment with Russia remains a source of tension, the bloc has coordinated policies on border control, energy infrastructure, and regional rail connectivity. Visegrád may lack unity in rhetoric, but it retains operational value in execution – particularly on migration and logistics.
These alliances are not symbolic – they are building the physical and digital foundations of European resilience. Rail Baltica, the high-speed corridor linking Tallinn to Warsaw, is more than a transport project; it's a geopolitical spine binding the eastern flank to the EU core. It has received major EU funding, yet still faces cost overruns and strategic urgency.
The Three Seas Initiative – linking thirteen countries between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas – is investing billions into cross-border energy, transport, and digital infrastructure. It's also seen as a tool to reduce dependence on Russian energy and a strategic space for new partnerships.
Yet Brussels often treats regional groupings as distractions – parallel bureaucracies, political irritants, or signs of centrifugal force. But this view misjudges their potential. Regional blocs are not threats to the Union's cohesion; they are accelerators of its strategic capacity. Their great strength is speed: while EU-wide policymaking is slowed by consensus-building and institutional complexity, these coalitions move faster, piloting what could eventually scale up to Union-wide initiatives.
The real risk is not duplication – it's inertia. Europe's political centre should not fear the growing strategic agency of its edges. These coalitions are not rejecting the EU project; they are compensating for its blind spots. In some domains, they are already outperforming Brussels in both implementation and vision.
If the EU wants to be geopolitically credible, it must invest in the laboratories of resilience forming on its eastern flank. That means targeted funding, regulatory flexibility, and political backing – not only for pan-European programs but for the subregional alliances that are delivering results. Brussels should formalize coordination channels, incentivize cross-bloc innovation, and treat these groupings as early warning systems for what works.
Europe's centre of resilience is no longer at the centre. It lies in the coalitions quietly building strength at the edges—where urgency meets action, and where Europe's future may already be underway.